Posts by BenDwire

That old box of tech junk you should probably throw out saves a warehouse

In a nice tidy return to the original story, those were used with Sun Sparcstations back in the day.

Re: Clothing corallary

That's all fine while you're also the same size and shape yourself. I cannot tell you how many unused items of clothing have gone to the charity shop because of my aging and ever-expanding waistline.

Or a couple of Nokia ones wired in parallel !

Re: Drawer of redundant tech

And a spare.

Argh! And I though it was just me that did that ...

BOFH: Get me a new data file or your manager finds out exactly what you think of him

Re: turn around three times and punch yourself in the face

chimps just pushing buttons in a sequence for a banana

It's difficult for anyone with any amount of 'computer proficiency' to understand the thought processes of those who don't have (and don't want) a clue. During a year-long battle to replace our aged ERP system with something from the 21st century, endless people used to complain that it was 'different' and they couldn't possibly change. The solution? To completely re-write all those "Works Instructions" that literally told the users which buttons to press, and in what order.

I would recommend anybody responsible for writing software to go into a manufacturing department and see what the users really do when faced with their latest and greatest.

Bear in mind that most manufacturing people have amazing production skills, so don't assume that they're stupid at all. They just speak a different language to us boffins.

Windows XP activation algorithm cracked, keygen now works on Linux

I think the idea was to image the HD *Before* it went TITSUP, then it's a very simple process to put in a new drive copy back the image. I used Acronis to support mission critical systems when XP was a thing, and it never let me down. Of course now drives are bigger, encryped and TPM'd so it's a different story. But I'm retired, so I don't care anymore.

Beer, anyone?

An important system on project [REDACTED] was all [REDACTED] up

It was 2GB, and we hit that limit on one of the Sales computers. Of course no emails could be deleted for 'traceability' reasons, so a migration to Thunderbird became our only affordable option. That has worked fine ever since.

When you try to hire a freelancer to write SQL and all you get is incorrect AI garbage

Re: AI?

The other clue is that I drink beer. Lots of beer.

AI?

I thought it might be ironic to post a comment authored by AI as a trubute to this article, but I decided my time would be much better spent drinking beer. Cheers everyone!!

BOFH takes a visit to retro computing land

The adaptor cable is easy (I have 2) but getting an IR port on your modern phone is far more difficult these days ...

Re: Depreciation never written off

I 'inherited' an asset register where someone (i.e. the chairman) had done that, but negotiated with the auditors that once any item reached £50 it was removed from the register. After the few years everything settled down and only the worthwhile things remained, making everyone's lives far easier.

Singapore tells its people: Go forth and block those ads

Re: Vinegar.....

Not with a PiHole either.

Pager hack faxed things up properly, again, and again, and again

Re: not much of a "who me" but marriage was involved

Absolutely. Our jobs are so often thankless, but it's nice to see that silver linings can and do exist.

I raise a beer as a salute to you both

Defunct comms link connected to nothing at a fire station – for 15 years

for those who don't remember them ...

How could I forget them. I helped design the bloody things ...

EU mandated messaging platform love-in is easier said than done: Cambridge boffins

Re: Misdirection.....If Signal Has A Backdoor (!!)....Then Citizens Can Fend For Themselves!!

Headley, I think we must be related as you've just described me as part of your first group. Mind you, I do run a Pi-Hole too ...

Have a beer, cousin.

Re: Reminds me of the early 2000's...

Do you mean Pidgin ? (or Adium for Macs). They're still going.

Microsoft scrambles to fix Windows 11 'aCropalypse' privacy-battering bug

Re: aCropalypse

I think you meant Acraprolapse

IT phone home: How to run up a $20K bill in two days and get away with it by blaming Cisco

Re: Ah, the good'ol days..

Back in the very early 1980's I worked in the development labs for a large telecommunications provider to BT where we invented such things as System X, Kilostream and Megastream. One of my uni cohorts was assigned to this little LTU (Line Terminating Unit) project and was charged with getting the power supply to operate correctly over all specified cable lengths. After a few days of him having a very grumpy demeanour we christened ISDN as "It Still Does Nothing" and that is what it will always mean to this old greybeard.

UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson is a… what user now?

MULTICS

I can't believe that no other commentard has mentioned their experiences of MULTICS (although I fully expect to be Ninja'd in that respect)

Back in the heady days of the early '80's my university (Brunel) had a system that us undergraduates could use as we saw fit. There were rows of teletypewriters with no screen but spewed fanfold lined paper, and a handful of early CRT terminals (VT52?) and even a card reader for the postgrads.

It was completely oversubscribed but we discovered that free terminals could be found in the wee small hours after the uni bar closed. This was excellent training in becoming a functional alcoholic, but thankfully none of the code I wrote back then is available for peer review ...

That said, we had very little actual work to do, so I bought the small MULTICS handbook and amused myself by fiddling around on the command line. All good background for when I took delivery of my own Sparcstation several years later.

Being an engineer, I rarely throw things away, but I did bin that handbook during a house move. I've regretted it ever since, not just for the nostalgia, but it would have helped me recreate my university computer centre experience with nothing more than a Raspberry Pi.

Time for beer.

BOFH: I care a lot ... about onion bhajis

Sometimes I cannot believe how well I've trained him.

My work is done.

Intruder alert: WH Smith hit by another cyber attack

Re: Offers

I'm sure there must be a witty observation about many newspaper readers being completely unable to observe and react to the real-world events around them. But I wouldn't be so cruel ...

PC tech turns doctor to diagnose PC's constant crashes as a case of arthritis

Re: South don't work in the North

Sony Trinitron TVs

I had one of those years ago, and was simply fantastic. Great picture, good sound and completely reliable until my 2 year old threw a stoneware mug at the screen - probably due to some 'peril' in Thomas the Tank Engine. He managed to knock a chunk of glass out of it the size of a 2p piece, but thankfully the tube didn't implode. The insurance company paid for a new tube, but the repair company couldn't align the guns properly which resulted in a red blotch whenever the picture was predominately green e.g. football & snooker.

I've still not forgiven him for that; He's just turned 32.

A tip for content filter evaluators: erase the list of sites you tested, don't share them on 100 PCs

Re: Customers

We had Prestel in the UK in the early eighties, but it's far too long ago to recall if the internet was involved at that time. We also had those dreadful Amstrad E-mailer phones in the early noughties.

Re: A lot of El Reg Readers really are very old

A lot of El Reg Readers really are very old

Thanks for reminding me, not that my knees ever let me forget these days ...

99 year old man says cryptocurrency is for idiots

Old man yells at (the) cloud

Surely that describes most of us greybeards these days?

Thunderbird email client is Go for new plumage in July

Re: Enshittification is coming

Agreed, an equally valid alternative!

Re: I Like Outlook

But does Outlook still have that hard 2TB limit older versions had? I made the switch to TB as a direct result of it, and have put up with its foibles ever since.

I used to really like the old Outlook UI (c 2000) and I for one don't think that 'old' is always a bad thing. Face it, keep 'old' long enough and it becomes a valuable antique; and that's how I view TB now.

Re: Enshittification is coming

what's the opposite of "improvement"?

Erm, Windows 11 ?

Another RAC staffer nabbed for storing, sharing car crash data

Why the doxxing??

I'm fairly sure this is the first article I've seen where a criminal has had their actual address published in full (**). Why on earth do that, especially as it's implied they no longer live there.

I have a friend who is currently undergoing a barrage of attack on his house as he decided to prosecute a dog owner whose pooch decided to take a bite out of my mate's todger. It turns out the dog owner is a nasty piece of work with friends in the local traveller community who are happy to lob bricks for a few quid. My mate was doxxed (intentionally?) by one of the people in the legal team, and as such his life is now a living hell. And his tackle still hurts.

Doxxing is not something that any professionsl publication should be doing, in my opinion.

(**) I've now realised this isn't the first article; The other one involved some clown at 10 Downing St.

WINE Windows translation layer has matured like a fine... you get the picture

+1 for Crossover

There was a time when I used wine to run a few things in Linux, but a decade or more ago Crossover gave away a free licence for their software and I gave it a go. Suitably impressed, I've carried on using it and happily pay a small amount each year for updates. Crossover feed back into the Wine project anyway, so I consider my cash as directly supporting Wine.

If you're someone who can't be bothered to spend hours getting Wine going, then give Crossover a go. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.

helloSystem 0.8: A friendly, all-graphical FreeBSD

Re: Don't get this MAC is simple thing

piggy baking

Now I can't get the thought of a huge pork roast out of my head ...

Smart ovens do really dumb stuff to check for Wi-Fi

Re: Frightening

Those lapping people tend to be the yoof of today. Have you spoken to any of them recently? They seem to have been (un)educated by "the system" to the point of accepting any bollocks they are indoctrinated with. My own kids have been enough of a challenge to keep on a sane path, and even then I think I've faiied in my mother's eyes.

Mine's the one with the CDs in the pocket, and a few 7½ ips tapes ...

Software devs targeted as British tax authority makes fraud allegations

Re: I think this was always a bit dodgy...

I used to run an Electronic Engineering firm whose products were a blend of mechanical, electronic and embedded software components. I used to look after the R&D claim (no consultants allowed on my watch!) and used to categorise each engineer's time to non R&D (product maintenance, obsolescence & production problems, not to mention holiday and sick pay) and R&D (exclusively new product development). It was all quite simple, and I wrote an annual report justifying why I considered the claims valid. HMRC were quite happy with that, and the credits obtained helped fund some quite impressive projects - which of course kept our people employed, being the whole point of the exercise.

Our accountants wanted to claim more than I was asking for, but I wasn't prepared to screw a few more pennies out in exchange of more detailed reporting. They used to point out that the banking system were one of the biggest beneficiaries of R&D credits, as each new loan vehicle or investment opportunity were seen as new novel ways to extract cash from the poor punter. The reporting threshold was so low anyone could, and did, claim for anything. A tightening up of the scheme is long overdue, but to accuse everyone of fraud is very heavy handed.

As with all things to do with tax, the system needs to be simplified and focussed on the original aims of the scheme. I remember Gordon wanted to help businesses grow by developing new products, but I don't recall the need to inflate banks profits (that came much later in his tenure).

New IT boss decided to 'audit everything you guys are doing wrong'. Which went wrong

inevitable burnout

Been there, done that, worn out the tee shirt. Thankfully the life savings are still deep enough to fund an early retirement ... so far.

Gonna run System Restore in Windows 11? Microsoft says some of its apps won't

+1 for Timeshift. It just works.

During my win7 to Linux transition phase I managed to bork my system with a PEBCAK issue, yet Timeshift happily reversed an entire system upgrade. No doubt there were other ways to get off the bleeding edge, but none so convenient.

Time to study the classics: Vintage tech is the future of enterprise IT

Re: "If it's old, it's obsolete; and if it's obsolete, it needs to die."

I was more of a Lance Leventhal man myself - I've still got his 6809 and Z80 books, although they're pretty battle-worn.

This is the end, Windows 7 and 8 friends: Microsoft drops support this week

Re: I'm OK with Chrome no longer being supported

That's the same scanner that I have. I too got it working with A4 pages, but not the negatives - hence the VM. If it's any consolation I never got it going under Win 10 either - Epson abandoned it with (IIRC correctly) only 32 bit drivers.

Re: I'm OK with Chrome no longer being supported

I switched to Linux 4 years ago as I hated Win10, but I still run a VM with Win7 to talk to my scanner if required - maybe once or twice a month. Once I'd figured how to get everything done under Linux it has just stayed working that way.

Mind you I'm old, and I prefer an old style WIMP user interface so I admit to being easily pleased.

Cleaner ignored 'do not use tap' sign, destroyed phone systems ... and the entire building

Re: Concrete dust = Kryptonite

We need a Pinocchio icon ...

Riding in Sidecar: How to get a Psion online in 2023

Re: As an aside...

They start off orange, but turn yellow if you leave them on the windowsill ...

Re: Oh memories

I had the docking cradle for my 5mx which cleverly used infrared-transparent plastic so I could still communicate with my Nokia while docked with my PC. Writing SMS messages on the 5mx was so much easier than on the phone.

Like most Psions, the screen went faulty due to the flexi circuit splitting (design fault by Psion - they put a tooling hole in the wrong place) but I bought a replacement from some enterprising chap who had a batch made and all was well again. It was eventially replaced by a Sharp Zaurus and was put away in its box somewhere with all the manuals and disks. Mabe I should put it on eBay now that there will be such a huge demand from this project..! (/s)

Re: As an aside...

I've got both volumes, and no, you can't have them!

When we asked how you crashed the system we wanted an explanation not a demonstration

Re: Let me show you how it should be done......

Well, despite retaking my electrical engineering exams every year during my uni course, I managed to qualify as an Electrical & Electronics engineer. A dozen years later and I'm working as the guy in charge of the design team at a very well known and rather conservative Instrumentation company.

They produced *mechanical* synchroscopes (in the UK, no less) which were a work of art, and even had jewel bearings. These things would rotate 360 degrees when the supply and generator output were out of synch, but could be made to stop at 0 degrees by tweaking the genny speed. A separate box with a clever transformer with two primaries could close a relay when both the voltage and phase were in acceptable limits. Result: No broken crankshaft.

Someone decided that they wanted an electronic version as a competitor had introduced one with a ring of LEDs to show the phase angle, and a couple of go/no-go lets monitoring the voltage. That sounded like an ideal job for one of those new 10 bit PICs I had been reading about, so off I went to design something that did everything in a single unit. And it worked, very well and brought in vast fortunes for the company.

However, the marketing wonks wanted to sell this as an automatic synchronising system, and I cannot convey how hard I had to fight to convince them that an 80p microprocessor was not adequate for such a task. Sync Check, yes. Control No. Thankfully I won.

Fast forward a few years at a German trade show and this guy is showing off his container mounted generator rig, and there is my bit of kit on the front. As instructed, there was a big switch in series with my relay output, the purpose being that the operator had to use their eyes and ears to confirm all was well before pressing the button. To my horror he simply started the engine and pressed the button even though the display was whizzing around at an alarming rate ... and as soon as it hit 0 degrees for a number of cycles the breakers connected the generator to the grid. No bangs, no bent crankshaft. His English and my German weren't compatible enough for me to explain why that was such a bad idea. All I got out of him was "It's the best device on the market".

An £0.80 microprocessor controlling a £10k+ generator. Madness. Mind you, we never got any warranty claims despite selling thousands of the things.

BBC is still struggling with the digital switch, says watchdog

Re: A few things of interest.

I get the Green/Black issue on my box, and it's all to do with CEC implementation on your TV. In my case, if the box records an HD channel while the TV and AV Amp are off, then I'll often end up with a flashing screen.

I get better results now that I've updated the bootloader (check the hummy.tv forums), but I still have to reboot the box now and again; I have a shortcut to the box's maintenance screen on my phone, so it's a simple two click thing now.

Re: A few things of interest.

You've just reminded me of my OnDigital experiences in 2000. I has just moved to within eyesight of the Sandy transmitter, and my new shiny digital TV box wouldn't work. Back in those days when service was still a thing, they even sent a man round to investigate. He concluded that I needed an attenuator in the input lead as the signal was far too loud, despite being fed from the a tiny aerial in the loft.

After that, it worked reasonably well for the short duration the service existed, and then went on to be my first set-top box on the early days of Freeview. Since then those duties have been taken over by a Humax box which is still going strong (albeit with customised firmware).

Beer, as it's Friday.

Server broke because it was invisibly designed to break

Almost de-ja vu

I thought this story was going to end the same way mine did, but no. My ending was far more embarrassing:

20 years ago I had a IP-Cop firewall looking after my home network. As such, I'd used the smallest PC case I could find and some old Pentium II motherboard I'd salvaged from somewhere. In those days the power switch really was a power switch, with 240V (yes, that long ago) running to the front panel.

One Friday evening the internet went down, and after much diagnostic swearing I decided that the fizzing noise from the little machine must be the cause. It was obviously a fried PSU so I decided to swap it out with a spare I kept for such occasions ... except the output plugs didn’t match the obsolete mother board. No matter, I thought, I have a soldering iron and heatshrink so just get on with it. Some hours and bleeding fingers later (did I mention it was also a cheap case) I had the thing reassembled and ready to go. Switch on. Nothing ... apart from the same fizzing noise.

Only then did I replace the mains lead and all was well ...

Inadequate IT partly to blame for NHS doctors losing 13.5 million working hours

And according to people in the know, those hoops require brown paper envelopes stuffed with pictures of the Queen

Longstanding bug in Linux kernel floppy handling fixed

I bought one of those too, a Tektronix if memory serves. We even managed to get trace printouts by using an odd Epson laser printer in some strange compatibility mode.

'Scopes used to cost a fortune compared to the cheap Chinese devices we can buy now. But then again I used to have a 1960's Cossor scope in my bedroom as a kid, so I'm more than a bit weird.

Rights groups threaten legal action over NHS data pilot based on Palantir tech

Re: A simple solution?

Any government that disregards this completely loses the trust of the populace.

I think they lost that a long time ago.

BOFH: We're an industry leader … in employing idiot managers

Re: Thank You

Indeed. I even turned the computer off at that point and put a load of t-shirts in the washer. Thankfully I don't have a basement, but I do have a very untidy office.